Shahab Ahmed found guilty of murdering wife in jealous rage
A Sydney man who stabbed his wife 14 times after seeing sexual messages from their friend on her phone has been found guilty of her murder, with a judge rejecting he was substantially impaired by a depressive illness at the time.
A man who stabbed his wife to death after discovering that she had been sexting his friend has been found guilty of murder with a Supreme Court Judge concluding he, “deliberately acted on his jealousy and rage”.
Hotel cleaner, Shahab Ahmed, 35, had pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to murdering his wife Khondkar Fariha Elahi, 29, claiming he was substantially impaired when he stabbed her 14 times at their Parramatta home on February 18, 2017. Instead he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ms Elahi but this plea was rejected by the Crown.
Following a judge-alone trial Justice Monika Schmidt found Ahmed guilty of murder beyond reasonable doubt saying that after stabbing his wife he then did, “nothing to help her before she died”.
“There is no issue that instead, he delayed calling triple-0 until after he had smoked some cigarettes; made entries on both his and Ms Elahi’s Facebook pages; and watched her, until she had stopped breathing.”
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The trial heard that Ahmed knew his wife had previously had an affair with his friend, married IT worker Omar Khan.
Ms Elahi had made it clear that she wanted a divorce which Ahmed was strongly opposed to.
In the weeks before her murder Ahmed had conducted internet searches on the punishments for adulterous wives.
On the evening of her death the couple fought with Ahmed accusing her of continuing the affair and demanding to see her phone.
Ahmed later told police he gained access to Ms Elahi’s phone using her thumb print and discovered the intimate messages.
After reading them he stabbed her 14 times as she begged for her life calling him by his nickname, “forgive me Russel, Forgive me Russel.”
After stabbing her Ahmed smoked several cigarettes for about 10 minutes then updated his Facebook status to read “THE END”. He then changed Ms Elahi’s profile picture on her Facebook account to a photo of the two of them smiling together.
He then called triple 0 and told the operator that he had “killed my wife” and she was “dead.”
Justice Schmidt said in her written judgment that she had no doubt that before her death Ms Elahi was “in real fear,” of her husband.
“But she was not able to dissuade him from his insistence that she give him access to her phone, despite the desperate pleas Mr Ahmed described, and so she made a fatal error.”
“The text messages which Ms Elahi had recently exchanged with Mr Khan no doubt convinced Mr Ahmed, as nothing else had, of the unlikelihood that he could “keep” Ms Elahi as he wanted, given the depths of the feelings she had developed for Mr Khan, which those texts revealed. Mr Ahmed who was already enraged, then acted on his impulse to hurt Ms Elahi,” Justice Schmidt said.
Justice Schmidt said his actions in delaying calling triple 0 after stabbing his wife were, “unarguably calculated, deliberate acts inconsistent with Mr Ahmed then having had an impaired capacity to control himself and entirely consistent with him ensuring that no help could be given Ms Elahi, to save her life.”
She said the “obvious ferocity,” of the attack which left the tip of the knife broken between Ms Elahi’s teeth was, “consistent with deliberate acts and not just a loss of control.”
Ahmed chose not to give evidence at the trial. He remains in custody and will be sentenced at a later date.
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